Amaranthine
by badacts
Summary: These are the things that Mallorie Cobb remembers from the last anniversary of her wedding. Movie AU, Mal/Cobb, Arthur/Eames.
1. Prologue

**_GUYS. THIS IS A STORY. WITH CHAPTERS. Or, well, it WILL have chapters in a bit._**

**_AMARANTHINE means eternal or immortal, a connection to AMARANTH, or 'the flower that never fades', or 'love-lies-bleeding'. It's a plant, by the way._**

**_This is the movie AU that no one ever wanted, because I clearly have too much time to think about this stuff. On the upside, it's mildly better than the always-a-girl!Eames fic that I can't stop thinking about. Sad, but true. _**

**_I feel guilty that STATIC, the third installment in electricity-verse, isn't up yet. I'm hoping for tomorrow! It needs little work first, but I needed to get this bitsy thing OUT OF MY BRAIN first._**

**_Word count: ~1000 this part, WIP_**

**_Rating: T_**

**_Warnings: non-canonical character death, swearing, slash, angst, extreme use of page dividers (I don't apologise for that though)._**

**_Pairings: E/A, M/C, some others._**

**_Disclaimer: It's not mine._**

**

* * *

AMARANTHINE**

BadActs

PROLOGUE

* * *

These are the things that Mallorie Cobb remembers from the last anniversary of her wedding:

* * *

Dom's voice, as soothing as ever, easy and gentle in her ears even as he holds a gun to the underside of her jaw, tipped back.

He says, "We have to go back, Mal. Our children are waiting for us up above, and we can't stay down here any longer."

And Mal says, "But we're awake. Dominic, we're awake, don't do this, please don't do this, mon Dieu-"

And she's gasping, desperate, her hands clawed into the fabric of his fine suit. He'd looked so beautiful, when he'd walked in. For a moment, she had thought that this would be one of the days where he pretended to believe her just to make her happy, as though she _could_ be happy when she knows that he is pretending.

Then he'd pulled the gun.

* * *

Arthur's stern face over her husband's shoulder, his eyes the only window onto the torture they've both been experiencing over the last few days. He is an avenging angel, her Arthur. He is magnificent, and Mal doesn't at all expect him to be able to save her.

He doesn't say anything. Words have never been Arthur's forte, not like Dom's, so all the things he means to say aloud – _**for God's sake, don't do this, let her go**_ – are captured in the lines of his body as he yanks Dom away by the collar and disarms him in one smooth movement.

The lamp falls, the bulb smashing into diamond specks in the carpet. Mal watches the arc of it, the shatter, and her mind is too slow to really make sense of it. Shock has made her deaf, her vision narrowing down.

Dom, however, is stronger than Arthur – he strikes out and his fist clips the shorter man on the temple, swinging him around until Dom can back him up to the wall. And Dom takes Arthur's own gun from where he wears it at the back of his belt and puts it to Arthur's chest, steady.

"It's amazing what the human mind can do, you know. You look so real, Arthur. So fucking _real_," Dom murmurs. It's like a parody of a dream, because Dom, in real life, wavers with a gun in his hand where people like Arthur and Eames don't shake. But Dom thinks that he's dreaming, thinks that killing Arthur is just killing a projection of Mal's. The only kind of blood that feels warm on your skin and melts off without even washing

"I _am_ real, Dom," Arthur gasps back, blinking away spots in his vision.

"No. No, you aren't. You're Mal's, and we need to wake up to the real you," Dom replies, and his finger moves to the trigger.

Mal has known Arthur since he was twenty years old, when he wore BDUs and his hair was buzzed down to his scalp. She has seen him swear and bleed and weep and grow into the bold, stunning man he is now. She's seen him broken, and in love. And she can't bear to see him dead.

Killing her is one thing. Killing Arthur – the muzzle of the gun rising to his forehead, the point man struggling against the forearm over his throat, the dawning realisation in his eyes (_I might die, right now_) – is another entirely.

The gun in her hand, the weight of it. The ease of firing into someone's back from a distance of only ten feet.

* * *

Arthur, taking the gun and wiping it carefully clean of prints, only to weigh it in his hand. He puts it down out of her reach and then kneels in front of her where she crouches against the wall. She doesn't remember getting here – she might be dreaming, but she's too afraid of being wrong to go for the weapon.

"Call the police," Arthur is saying, and he looks like a rough, wild thing. "Call them and tell them that it was me. Tell them that I did it, okay?"

Mal nods, because Arthur seems to be waiting for that. He touches her, briefly, once: a clasp to her wrist, a little too hard.

He says, "Don't follow him there. You can't go where he's gone."

Mal knows that. She knows.

"Call Eames. Tell him the same over the phone, don't tell him the truth, in case they try to get the phone records. Can you do that?" Arthur is asking, and he's knocking things over, opening the window. The curtains billow wide with the cold night air. "Eames will stay with you. He'll stay."

He sounds as though he's hoping for that, hoping against hope. Mal can understand just enough of Arthur's plan to know that it's going to save her – of course it is, Arthur will always save her – but that it's going to cost Arthur. It's going to cost him in ways that no one of them can help him with.

"Do that for me," Arthur says, "and don't you dare die."

* * *

The soothing voice of the emergency operator, over the phone – _**what's your name, ma'am? Are you hurt?**_

And Mal saying, "No, no, but my husband – I think he's dead." And her voice breaking, quivering under the strain of those words.

* * *

Eames' steady hands, long fingers and palms callused from the hilts of the knives he loves. He holds her together, leads her away from the blood that she put there, and Mal feels like Lady Macbeth, like nothing she will ever do can wash these stains out.

* * *

Eames sitting with his head in his hands, absurdly quiet and still as a statue. The police who want to take her for questioning. Mal's children, crying. But Mal is with them, all because of Arthur's sacrifice. And that is something that she will never, ever be able to fix, either.

Mal saying into Phillipa's ear, "I'll be back. I'll be back." Her hand in James's hair, the sun-blonde of it bright around her fingers. And knowing that she's telling the truth, because of Arthur.

These are the things that Mallorie Cobb remembers from the last anniversary of her wedding.

Because after that it becomes the anniversary of the day that her husband died.

* * *

_**This is, like, my fifth fic in not very long. Heh. Sorry to the people who have me on their alerts list, it much be like being spammed.**_

**_STATIC tomorrow, guys, I nearly promise!_**

**_BadActs_**


	2. Till It's Done

**_Yeah, for those of you who forgot about me after I uploaded 63000 stories and then disappeared for three weeks? SURPRISE._**

**_Okay, no, really, I feel bad that this took so long. I've been away and then busy and then away again and then really, really blocked on this chapter. I don't think that the next chapter will take so long. Meanwhile, if you're waiting for the next fic in electricity-verse? Ahaha, sorry, keep waiting._**

**_Thanks for the amazing feedback I've gotten, by the way, it's very much appreciated! Some of you guys just make me want to offer my undying love. I'm not even joking._**

**_ON WITH THE FIC._**

**

* * *

AMARANTHINE**

**CHAPTER ONE: **TILL IT'S DONE

BadActs

_**

* * *

I've done myself an impossible crime: had to paint myself a hole, and fall inside.**_

_** - Spilt Needles by The Shins**_

* * *

Arthur is not at all surprised when the Cobol job goes to hell.

Veronica leaves him two levels down with a whisper in his ear that she's going to go steal the info they need and that he needs to do what he's here for: to be the distraction. She looks ravishing in a scarlet floor-length gown the precise shade of her cherry-red hair, flawless white skin a sign of how good Arthur really is at his job. Veronica doesn't help him, much: she's too young and too rash for this sort of job, especially where she has to manage a man as prepossessed as Saito.

Arthur avoids playing with the best in the business because it's better to keep your head down when you have as many enemies as he does. However, he likes to draw the line between 'capable, if mediocre' and 'not observant enough to correctly mimic a two-room apartment'.

Also, he finds that less talented dream-workers are far less likely to end up dead, crazy or spending the rest of their days with machines breathing for them. He considers that a bonus.

Arthur is trying to fend off the projections, trying to buy Veronica a little more time, when warm hands settle steady on his hips. He doesn't even flinch. He's used to this by now, the curse of his eidetic memory combining with his less-controlled-than-he-might-like subconscious desires.

Arthur, despite what many people might think, is a passionate man.

"You seem to be in something of a tight spot," the familiar accented voice says in his ear. "Let me help you?"

"Why not," Arthur replies, because, really, why the fuck not. If his subconscious is efficient enough to create a reliable back-up, complete with dead-eye, why would he say no?

Seeing Eames here, like this, always feels like vertigo. It feels like falling, like staring at the drop below the steady point on which you stand, like the ground giving under your feet. Arthur should know. The forger is dressed appropriately for the previous occasion in dark suit and elegantly patterned tie, and his hands are totally sure on his gun.

Eames shoots here like he does in real life, barely pausing to pick his shot before firing, far more proficient with a weapon than his playful, careless demeanour would suggest. However, Eames only uses a gun when he has to. Arthur wonders whether his projection of the forger has the same number of knives stashed under his clothes that Eames carries. Then he takes his attention off of the man – dangerous, foolish, and he knows it – to focus on shooting Saito's projections.

Unfortunately, having a gun yourself doesn't prevent one from being shot. Arthur goes down with a bullet in his belly, the kind of wound that would bleed him out slow and painful if he was alone, what with his gun hitting the ground well out of his reach.

Projection-Eames doesn't offer the apology that the real Eames probably would in this situation just before he puts Arthur out of his misery. For some reason that, more than anything else, makes Arthur's throat dry even as he wakes on the first level.

Saito's gun is jammed up against the tender skin of his throat. Arthur's heart rate picks up a notch out of instinct alone, even knowing that he's dreaming. Nash is incapacitated on the floor, bleeding steadily from a head wound, and Veronica is still asleep in her chair with her chin on her chest. That tells Arthur that Saito hasn't been awake very long.

It also tells him that the entrepreneur knows exactly who he is.

Someone who didn't would have gone for the person who seemed more dangerous: Veronica, with her warm words and elegance in the dream, stealing his secrets with a smile. He would have been ignored for her, which would have been just fine.

"You disappoint me, Arthur," Saito says, confirming that theory beyond a doubt, his eyes fever bright with the success of out-smarting them. "I'd heard many interesting things about your team." And because he's looking at Arthur, he doesn't see the movement from behind him, and he doesn't hear it because there's nothing to hear.

"It's not his team," Veronica says in her bubblegum high-schooler voice, and punches Saito in the kidney hard enough to put him on the floor. She follows it up with a knee planted in his back, pressing his face into the carpet.

The black belt in jujitsu was a definite point in favour of working with Ronnie, Arthur will admit that to anyone who asks.

"You get what we need?" Arthur asks her.

"Most of it," Veronica snaps out, pulling her gun and cocking it. Saito's fingers twitch reflexively at the cold metal noise of it. Arthur watches the digits still, then stroke again. It's a thoughtful action now, and Arthur knows right at that moment that _most _of the information is going to have to be enough for Cobol.

"We're still dreaming," Saito pants. "We're still dreaming."

Veronica stands and rolls him over with a sneakered foot, gun held steady on him. "How the hell do you figure?"

"Your man's eye for detail isn't as precise as one might like," Saito says, control already returning. "A dream within a dream. Perhaps your reputation isn't entirely undeserved."

"Fucking Nash," Veronica spits as the music for the kick begins, low and pulsing and vital. The gun does not waver on its target. "He is so fired."

Veronica doesn't care that Saito – a man so powerful Arthur had had to call in every favour he owed his Eastern contacts just to get a feel for him, and then had been forced to fly over to stake him out himself anyway – now knows the name of their architect. Veronica is ruthless like that: she employs a one-strike policy, and is perfectly happy to throw members of her team to the sharks if they let her down.

Arthur, who is loyal to a fault and knows it, can't find it in him to agree with the approach.

The kick takes him up first, like always, and his hand goes to the knife stashed in his waistband even as his instincts tell him no one else is moving in their compartment. He is in motion almost before opening his eyes, muscle memory guiding his usual clean-up routine. The kid they've got watching him starts wildly, hand going to his chest.

Veronica comes up swearing, checking Saito's pulse and easing the cannula from his wrist before removing her own. "What a gigantic _goatfuck_, my God."

Nash, on the other side, passes over his rolled-up tubing and cannula. Arthur grabs Veronica's wrist to stop her rant at the architect, closing the case with his other hand.

"I'm out of here," he says, standing. "Rendevous tonight."

"He's hardly going to search the train for us," Nash snaps, no doubt realising that once he's dropped from their team he'll have to return to working the kind of jobs that don't quite pay enough to finance his many bad habits. Presuming, of course, that Saito doesn't track him down and kill him.

Nash isn't exactly right, either. Saito might not come looking for Ronnie, perhaps won't bother searching for Nash even, but Arthur has a bad feeling that the same cannot be said for him.

* * *

Arthur is grateful that Saito's man hands him the gun and not Veronica, because he knows that the extractor would kill him. She would kill him, because her temper burns hot as magma, but she'd regret it later and it would change her for the worse. Veronica is not a murderer. Arthur knows, because he was the same as her, once.

Not innocent, no. And not naïve. But he wasn't a killer, and being one now has not improved him.

"Thanks, but I don't work like that," Arthur says, waving the weapon away.

"That's not what the rumours say," Saito responds, motioning for Nash to be dragged out so that they can climb in. The seat is warm from the architect's body when Arthur sits in it, and he wonders how much longer the fucker is going to be alive.

"You shouldn't believe all the things people say," Veronica responds in a voice as keen as a blade, her eyes bright and just as sharp. "What do you want?"

"I want to hire the both of you for a job," is the straightforward reply. Then, a verbal flourish: "Inception. I need my competitor's heir to break up his empire once the old man dies, or I'll lose my foothold in the business completely."

"It's impossible," Arthur says, at the same time the Veronica answers, "We'll do it."

Veronica gives him the look of death, which would be a lot more threatening if she wasn't a twenty-five-year-old with hair the colour of cherry soda. However, Arthur has seen scarier expressions on much more terrifying people, so he doesn't flinch.

"Inception has never been done successfully," he clarifies, looking Saito dead in the eye. And _there _is a frightening person. The businessman's expression is completely inscrutable, his gaze cool and hard as stone. "Personally, I think that genesis of an idea by an outside source is impossible to masque. Say I told you not to think about elephants. What are you thinking of?"

"Elephants," Saito says, after the briefest moment.

"Of course. But you _know_ that I gave you the idea," Arthur replies. "It's not as simple as going into someone's dream and telling them what you want them to believe. It needs to be planted on a subconscious level or it won't take, and that kind of influence on the dreamscape is not achievable."

"However, one of America's most high-profile and successful dream psychologists says that it's perfectly possible in theory," Saito says, tossing Arthur a book that he catches, easy, in one hand. It's familiar, though his own copy is much more battered and weary-looking than this pristine version. "Page one hundred and twenty-three."

Arthur doesn't need to crack the book to know what he's referring to, so he just strokes one thumb down the spine of it, over the name of the author. "Theory and reality are not the same thing, Mister Saito. And Mallorie Cobb never tried a job like this one in her life. Inception…in my opinion, it's impossible until it's done."

Saito smiles a little, the corners of his eyes turning up. He says, "but you'll still take the job, yes?"

Arthur pauses, one eyebrow flicking up perhaps half a centimetre. "That's rather presumptuous of you, Mr Saito."

"I've heard things about you, Arthur. Many, many things, which is surprising in a man who seems rather mediocre at first glance," Saito muses. "You want to go back home, I think."

"America has this policy about wanted murderers where they get arrested and thrown into prison for the rest of their lives, though," Arthur replies. "They're funny like that."

"I can make those charges go away, if you do this," Saito says, almost breezily, and he's going to go on when Arthur cuts him off.

"Thanks for the thought," he says, "but I don't believe in fairytales."

"We'll do it," Veronica reiterates, even as the helicopter touches down on tarmac. She doesn't look at Arthur, but her message to him is perfectly clear regarding his place in this partnership. "I'll contact you when we've put a team together."

"And how exactly do you intend to do that?" Saito asks, smirking like having more money than God automatically makes him amusing.

"Your lady didn't really talk," Arthur says, which for a moment hangs as a non sequitur between the three of them. Then Saito's eyes narrow, the line of his back stiffening under his fine clothes. "Sometimes, there is an advantage in appearing mediocre. It doesn't mean that I can't step up to the plate at need, though. Mine aren't the kind of skills that disappear if I don't practise them."

He hops out of the bird, picking up his duffel and the PASIV device. "And don't bother trying to get me killed, either. People have tried it before and regretted it."

And he knows that he doesn't really look threatening in these clothes, with his hair buzzed short like this – he looks young, which is the point. However, he also knows that when he feels like this – too taut and too large for his skin, stilled energy turned to electricity in his bones – he radiates danger. It's nothing solid, nothing identifiable, but it's enough that Saito looks momentarily thrown.

"I'll keep that in mind," he says. "I'll be awaiting your call, Miss Wright."

Arthur doesn't watch the helicopter lift off and disappear out of sight: he is already striding away from the landing pad towards the plane, his phone out as he dials. Veronica is out of earshot, though probably not for long.

Mal answers on the third ring. "My love."

"I have a question," Arthur replies, because these sorts of calls are commonplace between them now. They talk too warmly and ignore too many things to keep them safe, and Mal never says his name. It's not safe. _He_ isn't safe, and he knows it.

"Ask away," Mal murmurs, amused.

"Inception. Do you think it's possible? I mean, I know you wrote that it was – but do you really think that?"

There is a long, long silence, where Arthur begins to think that he knows the answer.

"It can be done," Mal says. Her voice, this time, is stony, her accent harder. "Why?"

"How do you know that?" Arthur asks, because it's his job to question everything, and he's fucking _amazing_ at his job.

"I've done it." Mal murmurs, and she sounds forbidding in a way that Arthur associates more with trained soldiers and cops than he does with French dream psychologists who have killed people.

"Who'd you do it to?" Arthur whispers, just because he can't _not_.

Mal doesn't answer that. She says, again, "why?"

"Because a Japanese businessman read your book and hired me to do it," Arthur says. And it shouldn't be a big thing that Saito even mentioned the idea of helping him get home. It shouldn't, because in most ways he could have the things he wants in Los Angeles right now if he made one phone call. Except that he isn't willing to do that, to be the reason that people gamble like they think they might win, too blinded by promise to think things through. Arthur can't make any promises. And when he says _people_ he is only really referring to one person.

A year into his exile, Arthur had taken a bullet wound to the chest and nearly died. It was then that he'd known once and for all that what he'd said when he had left the States – _I'll call you if I need you_ – was a lie. Because he had needed, and he hadn't called, and he still can't decide whether that decision was selfless or selfish.

He doesn't think that it really matters, in the end.

Mal asks, "Who is the extractor?"

"No," Arthur pre-empts, "no, Mal."

Mal laughs, a high, hard sound. "I thought there was only one person you coddled like this."

Arthur, stung, snaps, "I don't coddle anyone. And Veronica is the extractor for this job."

Mal makes a dismissive sound. "You would be a better extractor than that child, sweetheart."

"I'm a perfectly good extractor," Arthur replies.

"_Perfectly good _isn't good enough to achieve inception," Mal says, "call me if you need me."

Arthur goes cold at the comment, heart rate picking up. He says, "I won't call you. Even if I do."

"Do you think I don't know that, _cher_? Do you really think I don't?" Mal asks, in a voice so unbearably gentle that Arthur has to close his eyes and swallow through the ache in his throat. "Luckily for you, I have my own sources. So let's just say that if you need me, I'll be there."

Arthur still trusts her enough to feel comforted by that promise. He doesn't want her to come, doesn't want her to risk herself like that when he's already paid everything to keep her safe, but he trusts Mal to know exactly how she can help him if he needs it.

"Thank you," he says, and hangs up before she can say goodbye. He's walked himself out a little past the plane, standing alone on the wind-blasted tarmac. When he turns around, Veronica is leaning on the bottom of the steps, one hip cocked and her eyes half-lidded.

"What does Mal say?" she asks. She has never met the woman in person, of course, but they've spoken once or twice over the phone. Ronnie admires Mal more than anyone else in the business, for both her talent and for her ruthlessness.

"She thinks it's possible," Arthur replies, scrubbing a hand through the bristles of his hair.

"I know she does. I've talked to her about it," Veronica mutters, gesturing for him to walk up the steps ahead of her. "I meant, will she be joining us on this job?"

Arthur wheels around to look her in the face. Veronica has very pale eyes, the colour of jade, and they are always deeper than they appear. "You're the extractor for this job."

Veronica shrugs, and he can't understand the expression on her face. "She's better than I am, Arthur. And we both know it. If this could get you home-"

"_This_," Arthur snaps, stowing the PASIV and his bag with carefully controlled motions, "is not going to get me home, Ronnie. This is just a job, there isn't that much at stake apart from the phenomenal amount of cash that Saito can pay us, and – just don't bloody forget that, alright? Jesus."

"You're crazy," Veronica informs him, throwing herself into the seat across from him. The stewardess shuts the door and sits as they begin to taxi. "I was thinking Yusuf would be the man to see about the compounds we need."

"That chemist lets people dream away their entire lives in his basement," Arthur replies. "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

"Which is more than most people could throw anybody," Veronica observes with her usual dryness. "He's in Mombasa."

"I'll go," Arthur says immediately, because the idea of Veronica in Mombasa is terrifying even without the fact that the city will be full of Cobol agents. Veronica rolls her eyes at him.

"Your faith in me is staggering," she says. "Anyway, thank you, but no. I can handle myself, for one thing, and for another I need you to go to Paris."

"Miles," Arthur says, and Ronnie nods once at him.

"He'll have someone for you, and you know it. But it'll only work if you ask him," she says. It's true: not because Miles doesn't like or trust Veronica – although he doesn't – but because the professor would do anything to repay Arthur for saving his daughter. And so what if it leaves a sour taste in Arthur's mouth, that Miles thinks he needs to pay Arthur for doing the right thing. It'll get them the best architect fast, though, young enough to mould him or her into exactly what they need.

Veronica waves the stewardess over and talks to her, telling her where they need to go. And it's easy, so easy, for a moment to pretend like this isn't to go just as wrong as the Cobol job, to let the extractor's hard, economical gestures soothe him into believing that she is as good at her job as he is at his. He can pretend that this is just a job. He can pretend that the thought of going home – the _thought_ – isn't enough to catch his heart in his throat.

* * *

Eames, of course, walks in right at the end of Mal's little chat with Arthur. Rather than announcing his presence – because he knows that Mal will stop talking if she realises he's there – he moves on soft feet to lean on the wall outside the kitchen door. He can just make out Mal's reflection as she paces back and forth over the wooden floor, delicate face downturned, free hand squeezing the hem of her tailored suit jacket.

He listens to her laugh, and say, "I thought there was only one person you coddled like this." And he knows she's talking to Arthur because he's the only one she addresses in that tone, half sharp and half easy, but he knows that she is referring to Eames because it's _true_.

And Eames knows Arthur. He knows that running from Eames is Arthur's penitence, because Mal killed the man she loved for the point man and Arthur can't bear to be indebted to her like that. It's meant to balance the two of them out. Except for the part where it realises punishes _Eames,_ because he wouldn't know if Arthur was dead unless Mal told him.

Arthur told Eames not to look for him, so Eames didn't. Apparently, the self-discipline the military tried to teach him stuck after all.

Eames closes his eyes when he hears the word inception. He misses dreaming, sometimes. Mal has offered him her device to use, has more than once, but Eames doesn't trust his control that far. He made a promise to Arthur, and he intends to keep it. Also, somnacin withdrawal isn't something he intends to go through more than once.

He can imagine what Arthur thinks of inception. But he can also tell that if Veronica, his latest extractor, says that they'll do it, he will. Arthur is like that: better at taking orders than he is at giving them. Eames used to wonder how the man ever actually managed to escape the American military's clutches, until he became personally acquainted with Arthur's ability to give the two-fingered salute and fuck off when needs be.

It turns out Arthur only follows the orders of those he trusts. That was more of a surprise to Eames than it should have been, even though he never gave Arthur a single order in his life. Except for ones involving the removal of clothes, but Arthur never did need to trust someone to fuck them.

Eames is bitter. He's bitter, and he knows it, and he _hates _Arthur for making him feel like that, and he's still in love with the bastard anyway.

He knows from the tone of her voice that Mal says goodbye to the dial tone. Arthur did that to him all the time, once, back when they used to only call one another for jobs or favours.

He chooses that moment to round the doorframe, facing Mal's back but knowing that she can see him in the mirror's reflection. The kids are playing outside, no doubt getting dirty before they even get to school and kindergarten. Eames drops them off every day before joining Mal where they work in the LA Institute of Dreams, which should really be called the CIA's Recruiting Ground for Scientists and Dreamers. Both of them work as psychologists, working with people in need through the dream technology.

Once upon a time, Eames would have said that only destruction could come from shared dreaming. Mostly because it destroyed all of theirs, in one fell swoop. Now, after eighteen months of legitimacy, of watching Mal come into her own in this few field that she had breathed life into, he can see how it can help people as surely as it can break them.

Of course, he'd always known that dream-sharing cost the marks something terrible. He'd just never cared, because he's selfish and he knows it, and because he had never been the one who'd had to pay before.

Eames isn't a good man. He isn't anything like Arthur.

"Eames," Mal says, turning to him, and her voice is tired. Eames tries to wipe off the expression that he can see of his own face in the glass, because it seems ridiculous to look so torn after hearing so many calls like these. Arthur doesn't contact him – he thinks it would be too much of a temptation for both of him. Eames can't find it in him to think that Arthur is wrong on that point.

"How many ways could this go wrong?" Eames asks, and Mal's expression turns heartbreaking.

There's only one thing that makes Mallorie Cobb look like that, ever. Because Mal is a strong as a slender willow, her fine-boned hands effortless on weapons, her mouth turning down into a hard line at the slightest sign of a threat. Even in the fresh flush of love with Dom, in the softness of pregnancy, Mal had always had the ability to turn to stone in an instant. However, any mention of Dom now makes her eyes turn dark and too soft, with the melancholy nature that Eames saw in her even before everything happened.

"You have to get deep enough," Mal murmurs, brushing past him to finish packing the kid's lunchboxes. "But it's too easy to get lost down there."

Because Dom…Dom got lost. Eames, who has never heard even half of the full story, and doesn't want to, knows that much. The complexities of Mal and Dom's ill-fated experiments would probably make Eames sick if he knew the whole of it, and more so now than ever.

"Uncle Eames!" James's small voice pipes from the back door, and the little boy attaches himself firmly to Eames's legs. Philippa – beautiful, with her father's hair and her mother's eyes – follows at a more sedate pace, entwining her hand with his. Eames feels massive in comparison to her. The two of them can clearly sense the tension in the room, their sharp childish senses honed by the losses they've sustained and the grief they live with in this sunlit house.

It's not any way to bring up a child, not really. Eames knows, though, that these kids will end up far more normal than him, or even Arthur, because through it all they've still had Mal. Arthur was right, too, to insist that Eames stayed: while he hasn't replaced Dom and never could, he's another reason why the Cobb children will grow up to be as brilliant as their parents.

"Hello, sprogs," he says, keeping his voice bright and cheerful. "Ready to go?"

They take their bags from Mal and accept her kisses before bolting off to at least try to buckle themselves into Eames' car. It's gotten to the point where he runs off of muscle memory alone to sort the two of them out. The first three months he spent doing this, he used to run through a checklist to make sure that beings so tiny and fragile would stay safe in his care. He's been surprised of their strength and resilience, since.

He's been more surprised of his own.

As he steps out of the door, he could say to Mal, _we'll talk about this later._ But they won't, he'll just think about and try not to and fail, and this will almost certainly be the last that _Eames _hears of it until Mal informs him that Arthur either finished the job, or died trying.

Eames has lived on the ledge for the last eighteen months. He still wonders when the call will come, the call that will knock him over into freefall.

* * *

_**In the next chapter, things will happen. Things other than backstory and angst. Hee.**_

_**(Also, listen to that song by the Shins, it's fantastic. However, the unofficial song for this chapter is E.T. by Katy Perry, which I cannot get out of my head.)**_

_**BadActs**_


End file.
